Aspiring nurses will be getting together in The Staff Library at East Cheshire Trust for a Nurse Recruitment Day this Saturday. Look out for information from the library on how we can help new students get a head start in their new career.

“Primary Care Protocols is a website which aids collaborative development of protocols to aid managers and clinicians working within the NHS. By using an innovative approach we are able to allow our users to collaborate in an online environment to work together to develop gold standard protocols.”

A new eight-day leadership course is helping front-line staff become better role models for their colleagues and provide excellent patient care across primary, community and secondary healthcare settings.

Around 1,200 nurses and midwives should complete the course, developed and delivered by the NHS Leadership Academy, by March 2014.

The programme focuses on the approach and behaviours of frontline nurses and midwives with leadership responsibilities, such as team leaders, ward sisters and supervisors, and the environment they create for their colleagues and patients. It was developed with input from nursing and midwifery leaders from across the country.

In October 2012, the Government pledged £46m toward NHE leadership development in the name of better patient care.

Background

Securing employment after qualification is of utmost importance to newly qualified nurses to consolidate knowledge and skills. The factors that influence success in gaining this first post are not known.

Objectives

The study aimed to describe the first post gained after qualification in terms of setting, nature of employment contract and geographical distribution and explore the relationship between a range of factors (including ethnicity) and employment at the point of qualification.

Design

An exploratory study using structured questionnaires and secondary analysis of data routinely collected by the universities about students and their progress during their course.

Settings

The study was conducted in eight universities within a large, multicultural city in the UK as part of the ‘Readiness for Work’ research programme.

Participants

Eight hundred and four newly qualified nurses who had successfully completed a diploma or degree from one of the universities; a response rate of 77% representing 49% of all graduating students in the study population.

Methods

Data were collected by self-completed semi-structured questionnaires administered to students at the time of qualification and at three months post-qualification. Routinely collected data from the universities were also collected.

Results

Fifty two percent of participants had been offered a job at the point of qualification (85% of those who had applied and been interviewed). Of these, 99% had been offered a nursing post, 88% in the city studied, 67% in the healthcare setting where they had completed a course placement. 44% felt “confident” and 32% “very confident” about their employment prospects. Predictors of employment success included ethnicity, specialty of nursing and university attended. Predictors of confidence and preparedness for job seeking included ethnicity, nursing specialty, gender and grade of degree. Newly qualified nurses from non-White/British ethnic groups were less likely to get a job and feel confident about and prepared for job seeking.

Conclusions

This study has demonstrated that ethnicity does lead to employment disadvantage for newly qualified nurses. This is an important contribution towards recognizing and describing the evidence so that appropriate responses and interventions can be developed. It is important that universities and healthcare institutions work closely together to support students at this important time in their nursing career.

Care in local communities: a new vision and model for district nursing
This vision and service model builds on ‘Compassion in practice’, the national vision for nurses, midwives and care staff. It was developed by a strategic partnership of the Department of Health, NHS Commissioning Board Authority, The Queen’s Nursing Institute, alongside district nurse leaders and practitioners. It sets out the foundations of district nursing services, the developments and innovations that ensure services can meet current and future needs, and the district nurse-led team contribution to providing care and support in the community, including peoples’ homes. It aims to be a resource for those designing and providing local community health services, including nurse leaders, health and wellbeing boards, clinical commissioning groups, and others with an interest in developing integrated care for older people.

This joint union survey is asking RCN members working in the NHS about their views on pay and working conditions. The findings will be used to help inform the RCN’s next submission to the NHS Pay Review Body, which makes recommendations to the Government on the level of pay and pay-related terms and conditions for NHS staff. The survey closes on Friday 8th June 2012.

Patients are being put at risk by healthcare assistants who have been asked to take on tasks for which they have not been properly trained, nurses have warned. Please feel free to comment on this post. What do you think?

RCN lone working survey 2011 This survey finds that over 60 per cent of nurses working in the community have been subjected to abuse in the past two years. The RCN is calling on employers to do all they can to protect their nursing staff and is urging all lone working nurses to consider the risks and act with caution at all times.